News Articles

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Brendan Gibbons
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August 15, 2024

Texas program that subsidizes fossil-fuel electricity turbo-charges 72 power plant applications

The state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) received the applications for loans under the Texas Energy Fund Program, the agency announced in late July. Following widespread power outages during a winter storm in 2021, Texas voters in November 2023 approved the low-interest loan program proposed by the Texas Legislature in an effort to increase generation capacity and avoid blackouts. However, many environmentalists question whether new gas generators are the right answer because they contribute to climate change, and some consumer advocates and energy analysts say it will not address the need to modernize the Texas grid to prevent more outages.

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Ari Phillips
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August 8, 2024

Oil refinery waste is a major source of air and water pollution

Two hours north of Oklahoma City outside a small town named Kremlin, billionaire William “Bill” Koch owns a plant that processes oil refinery waste. The 60-year-old Oxbow petroleum coke plant occupies enough land to cover 250 football fields. But it has an even larger environmental footprint. The plant’s sulfur dioxide emissions create haze and reduce visibility in several downwind states. A national report reveals that the “petcoke” industry releases large amounts of pollution at sites like this across the country, but that EPA has neglected to require it to install modern air and water pollution control systems, as are required for many other industries.

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Brendan Gibbons
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August 1, 2024

Environmental Integrity Project launches updated Oil & Gas Watch database and news site

The Oil & Gas Watch database and news site are being re-launched today (Aug. 1) with new features to make it easier for users to track oil and gas developments in local areas and gather national data on the growing industry. The database features a new “alerts” function to highlight new projects, updates, and public hearings. It also has new search tools; the projected greenhouse gas and related health impacts of projects; new maps; and sharable summary pages for industries. We also redesigned the Oil & Gas Watch News site and email newsletter. We are hosting a free virtual webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 21 to explain how to use the new database.

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Dante Mack
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July 25, 2024

Cancer-causing benzene emissions are rising at the Dow Chemical Orange plant in East Texas. Why?

Dow Chemical's facility in Orange County, Texas, has the highest levels of carcinogenic benzene air pollution measured at its perimeter among U.S. petrochemical facilities reporting to the EPA, according to the most recent available data. Benzene is a colorless, flammable gas with a sweet odor that is among the most potent cancer-causing byproducts of oil and gas operations. The EPA requires monitoring for benzene along the fencelines of all U.S. oil refineries and a smaller subset of chemical plants. While concentrations at many refineries have gone down, benzene levels at the Dow Orange plant remain stubbornly high and even reached concentrations more than three times higher than short-term safety thresholds and 33 times higher than a standard for chronic exposure.

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Preet Bains
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July 18, 2024

Data shows Denbury’s carbon pipelines leak more than any other CO₂ pipeline company’s

Denbury is one of the largest companies producing oil though enhanced oil recovery, which uses CO₂ to dislodge oil remnants from nearly depleted stores. The company owns an extensive network of CO₂ pipelines to supply its oil fields. However, data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) shows Denbury is responsible for more CO₂ leakage than any other CO₂ pipeline company. Since 2010, there have been 76 incidents involving CO₂ pipelines reported to PHMSA, collectively releasing nearly 67,000 barrels of CO₂ into the air...

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Griffin Bird
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July 11, 2024

Most hydrogen plants proposed near disadvantaged communities

At a time when the federal government is offering billions in subsidies to encourage hydrogen as an alternative fuel, U.S. companies have proposed at least 24 projects to build new plants to manufacture hydrogen out of natural gas. Public records show that about 90 percent of these projects are in or near low-income neighborhoods. The construction of these hydrogen plants in disadvantaged communities poses an environmental justice problem because they release not only greenhouse gases, but also air pollutants like particulate matter that threaten the health of local people.

LNG
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Brendan Gibbons
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June 27, 2024

Dominion LNG storage site sparks fierce opposition in rural North Carolina

Dominion Energy, a Virginia-based company that owns a natural gas utility in North Carolina, has been clearing away trees, leveling land, and blasting rock as it prepares to build a facility that will store liquified natural gas (LNG) in two massive tanks. The proposed Moriah Energy Center is one of several new natural gas storage projects planned across the U.S. Nationwide, the number of LNG storage facilities has increased about 42 percent since 2010, from 122 to 173, according to federal data. North Carolina regulators recently scheduled a public hearing on the facility's draft air permit for Aug. 1.

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Louisa Markow
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June 20, 2024

Corpus Christi, Texas, is ground zero for CO₂ storage buildout in oil & gas region

In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $16.4 million to the Port of Corpus Christi to explore carbon capture, use, and storage within the region and facilitate connections between CO₂ emitters and companies that use or store CO₂. The Port’s project is one of 33 across the U.S. that will get funding under the federal Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise Initiative, or CarbonSAFE. The 2023 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also includes a combined $3.5 billion to accelerate the deployment of several regional direct air capture hubs that can suck CO₂ directly out of the atmosphere.

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Ari Phillips
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June 13, 2024

Report: Jet biofuel is weighed down by pollution and loopholes

The biofuel industry markets itself as an environmentally-friendly alternative to petroleum-based fuels. But a recent examination of the emissions reports of 226 biofuel plants across the U.S. found that plant-based fuel manufacturers release almost as much hazardous air pollution as oil refineries – and significantly more of some dangerous pollutants, including formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.The industry is growing rapidly, with 32 new or expanded biofuels plants under construction or proposed, about two-thirds of which could make jet fuel from wood or plants.

Natural Gas Liquids
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Brendan Gibbons
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June 6, 2024

Company’s plans for 690-mile natural gas pipeline would affect thousands of landowners in Texas, Louisiana

With plans for the pipeline to begin operating in 2028, Houston-based Moss Lake Partners is already surveying a 300-foot-wide corridor along the pipeline’s route from west of Odessa, Texas, in the oil-and gas-producing region of the Permian Basin, to Lake Charles, Louisiana. The current route would cross 3,473 tracts of land, according to company filings. The DeLa Express is the latest in a wave of new pipelines transporting gas out of West Texas. The pipeline is one of 35 pending pipeline projects nationwide that are intended to supply gas to liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals for export.

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Paul MacGillis-Falcon
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May 30, 2024

As LNG industry booms, salt caverns converted into massive underground gas storage facilities

Companies are proposing to build or expand three large underground natural gas storage facilities in salt caverns along the Gulf Coast to supply a rapidly-growing LNG industry. The increased storage space is also needed, developers argue, for gas generators being used to back up the expanded use of wind and solar power. One side effect of storing gas underground in salt caverns is the leakage of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. These storage projects are also occasionally the sites of explosions and other accidents.

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Keene Kelderman
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May 22, 2024

New air pollution monitoring rules for refineries are driving down benzene levels at plant fencelines

Recent EPA data show a marked improvement in levels of benzene, a potent carcinogen, measured at the fencelines of U.S. oil refineries, suggesting that less of the dangerous pollutant is escaping into neighboring communities. By the end of 2023, only six out of 109 U.S. refineries exceeded the EPA's action level for benzene, compared to 12 at the end of 2020. New rules imposed by EPA in 2015 that require refineries to monitor these emissions and take action against high levels of the pollutant appear to be working.

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Brendan Gibbons
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May 15, 2024

Despite incentives for carbon capture, U.S. is still mining CO₂ to produce more oil

Even as the Biden Administration is providing billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to encourage industry to capture carbon dioxide and bury it underground to help protect the climate, some companies are working in the opposite direction. In places like southwestern Colorado and Jackson, Mississippi, companies are pulling huge volumes of virgin CO₂ out of the ground to use it to extract more oil, which is then burned to contribute more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

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Ari Phillips
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May 2, 2024

Pipeline supplying new PA plastics plant charged with criminal cover up of spills

Pennsylvania's Attorney General charged Shell Pipeline with 13 criminal charges for violating Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Law during construction of the 45-mile Falcon Pipeline in western Pennsylvania. The pipeline transports natural gas liquid in the form of ethane from drilling sites in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania to the Shell Polymers Monaca petrochemical plant, where it is processed into plastic. An investigation revealed that Shell allegedly failed to notify state officials about multiple problems, including when drilling mud or fluid was lost underground and came to the surface where it could contaminate waterbodies.

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Brendan Gibbons
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April 25, 2024

In Illinois, a massive taxpayer-funded carbon capture project fails to capture about 90 percent of plant’s emissions

The project, run by ethanol producer Archer Daniels Midland and partners, received $281 million in taxpayer dollars via Department of Energy grants. It has stored more than 2.8 million metric tons of CO2 since 2011. However, EPA records show that represents a capture rate of only about 10-12 percent of the plant’s emissions each year at most, allowing the rest of the carbon dioxide to escape into the atmosphere. This small percentage raises questions about whether industrial-scale carbon capture technology can be a meaningful solution to global warming.